Giday, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. Something special for you

today, a live recording of a one-of-a-kind event. It is one of the most uncomfortable and

dangerous questions in politics, not what policies, particular politicians or political parties,

advocate, but why they advocate for them and whether or not their worldviews are at least

in part shaped by wealthy, well-connected, powerful people who spend their money and time and

capital on trying to persuade politicians to their way of

seeing the world. In Australia, and I'm sure elsewhere, political parties raise enormous amounts

of money from their fundraising bodies which are technically not part of the government.

But of course, they run these events like big

fundraising dinners at which people with tons of money, mainly from corporations, can buy a

table or even an annual subscription and be guaranteed to be sitting next to and meeting with

and mingling with ministers of the government.

None of this has to be reported because technically they're not meeting with those people in

their ministerial capacity.

They're just meeting with them as human beings who happen to be a fundraiser.

And the influence of corporations on politicians on the way that they might vote,

the way they might think about the stakes in

major decisions that they have to make on regulating mining companies or airlines or devising

taxation or whatever is, needless to say, skewed because of this arrangement. So a gentleman

who goes by the name online of punters's politics, who is a fabulous guy,

and I should explain to non-Australians, punter in Australia does not mean or does not only mean

a gambler.

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